Kyle Wright has battled shoulder problems all season, resulting in the Braves placing the righty on the 60-day injured list just prior to the start of their playoff run. Wright will miss all of the postseason, and unfortunately now all of the 2024 season as well, since manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including The Athletic’s David O’Brien) that Wright will undergo surgery to correct the problem.
Wright’s shoulder injuries started in Spring Training and resulted in a season-opening stint on the 15-day IL. He made five starts before being forced back to the IL for ended up being more than a four-month layoff. Returning to the Braves’ rotation in September, Wright pitched in four games — two as a starter, then two more as a reliever. With the playoffs looming, Wright was being positioned for a role in Atlanta’s bullpen during the postseason, which he was happy to do in order to help the team win. However, an MRI on Friday revealed more shoulder damage, and surgery now looks like a necessity to correct the problem once and for all.
The injury will essentially cost Wright two years of his career, as he’ll wrap his 2023 campaign with only 31 innings pitched. It’s a brutal outcome for the 28-year-old, especially after it looked like he had finally established himself as a viable big league starter in 2022.
The fifth overall pick of the 2017 draft, Wright took a quick route to the big leagues and made his MLB debut in September 2018. Through the 2018-21 seasons, Wright only pitched 70 Major League innings over 21 appearances (14 of them starts), posting a 6.56 ERA and simply not pitching well enough to stick in the rotation or even on the active roster. The silver lining was a championship ring in 2021, as though he made only two appearances in the regular season, he landed a spot on the World Series roster and delivered a 1.59 ERA in 5 2/3 innings of relief work.
This set the stage for Wright’s breakout. He posted a 3.19 ERA over 180 1/3 innings in 2022, leading the majors in wins with a 21-5 record. Though he allowed a lot of hard contact and his walk and strikeout rates were only slightly above the league average, Wright’s 3.48 SIERA wasn’t much higher than his real-world ERA, and his 55.6% grounder rate only got a bit of batted-ball luck in the form of a .284 BABIP.
Wright’s 2023 numbers were basically a wash, as he had a 6.97 ERA over his 31 frames. With this recent performance weighing more heavily than his 2022 season, Wright was projected to earn $1.4MM in 2024, his first year of arbitration eligibility. Missing the 2024 season entirely would mean that Wright’s 2025 salary will either match or be fractionally beyond that $1.4MM figure, so even if he returns healthy and productive in 2025, he’d get a bump up to maybe something in the $4MM range for 2026.
In short, the shoulder injury has cost Wright millions of dollars, as he would’ve locked in some increasingly large salaries through his arb years if he’d kept pitching anything like his 2022 self. Given the Braves’ penchant for extending their in-house players, a solid 2023 season might’ve been enough evidence to convince the front office to lock in a multi-year agreement with Wright, giving him an even bigger payday.
The one possible upside to these limited salaries is that Wright is still making so relatively little that the Braves will still tender him a contract, allowing Wright to rehab and then hopefully bounce back in good form by Opening Day 2025. But obviously, losing Wright for a year has an impact on the Braves’ long-term pitching plans as well.
Spencer Strider is locked up on an extension through at least the 2028 season, making him the cornerstone of Atlanta’s rotation for the rest of the decade. Beyond Strider, Max Fried is a free agent after the 2024 season, and 39-year-old Charlie Morton could potentially retire after this season. Bryce Elder pitched generally well this year, though his numbers regressed significantly after a great first three months. Rookies Jared Shuster, Dylan Dodd, Allan Winans, and AJ Smith-Shawver all made their big league debuts in 2023, but Smith-Shawver is the only one of the group who pitched decently well. Michael Soroka didn’t pitch particularly well over 32 1/3 innings in his comeback season and was shut down in September due to forearm inflammation. As for other injured starters, Kolby Allard only threw 12 1/3 innings due to oblique and shoulder nerve inflammation,and Huascar Ynoa missed all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
It’s a lot of depth but not necessarily a lot of proven quality, though getting by with a so-so-rotation might be okay for a Braves team with such a spectacular offense. Going into 2024, Strider, Fried, and Elder seemingly have rotation spots locked, and if Morton returns, that’s still a solid top four. Top prospect Hurston Waldrep might also be on the roster as early as Opening Day, so it’s possible Wright might’ve had a hard time getting back into the rotation (or even beating out the many other arms for the unofficial sixth starter job) even if he’d avoided surgery. Many things could still shake out by the time Wright is ready in 2025, particularly if Fried did leave and if Morton did decide to finally hang up his glove.
